I’ve tried Zed, it’s a beautiful editor…it’s just too opinionated. For whatever reason, it doesn’t understand my Deno projects and I content get rid of the red squigglies.
Sublime lives up to its name.
A competitor to Eclipse would be JetBrains IntelliJ or Visual Studio (not Code), both are often considered superior by far, but neither are free.
Eclipse is also a platform for creating applications (RCP/RAP).
First thing, Eclipse is not just free as in free beer, it is also free as in freedom, which can matter.
In addition, you may be surprised how much free (as in free beer) matters to large companies and governments. Of course, a multi-billion dollar company can pay, but the simple act of acquiring a license, no matter the cost, can be a lengthy bureaucratic process for the lowly developer who needs it. It is usually much easier to use free software, especially big names like Eclipse that may be pre-approved. Of course, using a free licence you have no right to, let alone piracy is a big no no.
And while I don't think corporate inefficiency is a good reason, it is a reality and you have to work with it.
I don't understand what practical difference there is between Eclipse/IntelliJ and VSCode with extensions that makes one an IDE and the other not.